Internal combustion engines such as diesel engines, gasoline engines, and gaseous fuel powered engines use injectors to introduce fuel at high pressure into combustion chambers of the engines. Each of these fuel injectors includes a nozzle having one or more orifices that direct the pressurized fuel radially outward from the nozzle into the associated combustion chamber.
During injection, however, air entering an engine's combustion chamber naturally swirls in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction. Spraying fuel radially outward from the nozzle in the presence of such swirl can cause incomplete atomization or improper mixing of the fuel with the air. This may result in decreased performance of the fuel injector, which may be manifested through reduced engine efficiency, increased soot formation, and increased fuel consumption.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,082,921 B2 to Shimizu et al. (“the '921 patent”) describes a fuel injector for an internal combustion engine in which fuel is injected from a single orifice of the fuel injector into a combustion chamber. The orifice is slanted at a predetermined angle with respect to a central axis. The orifice also has a step which induces swirl in the fuel sprayed into the combustion chamber to improve atomization of the fuel.
Although the '921 patent discloses a fuel injector which induces swirl in the fuel spray, the disclosed fuel injector does not account for the effects of swirling air entering the combustion chamber and may still cause incomplete atomization and improper mixing of fuel with air.
The nozzle of the present disclosure solves one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the art.